The wrath of Khan in Pakistan

Pakistan’s cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan addresses his supporters in Wazirabad, Pakistan. Supporters of the Pakistani government and opposition protesters clashed on Friday during the second day of a march to the capital, Islamabad, aimed at forcing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign. (AP)

When Nawaz Sharif won a landslide election victory last year, many dared hope that Pakistan was entering a new, democratic era free of turmoil on the streets and of meddling generals. The election was a milestone, the first time in the country’s history that one democratically elected government handed over to another. Even Sharif’s defeated opponents in the Pakistan Peoples Party were proud to be the first civilian administration to last out a full five-year term.

Alas, not everybody on Pakistan’s political scene has concluded that repeatedly interrupting the democratic process stunts national progress. Imran Khan, a former playboy cricketer turned demagogue politician, is preparing to lay siege to the capital, Islamabad, with an army of supporters. Khan’s aides liken the gambit to the prolonged demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011; his aim is to bring down the government. The push was due to begin Aug. 14, independence day.

Khan launched his political career back in 1996 but only recently has his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party broken through. In the general election in May 2013, it became the third-largest group in parliament and secured the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the northwest.

This impressive sweep is not enough for Khan. He claims he would have won the election had massive vote-rigging not deprived him of victory. Though some polling irregularities came to light, neither Pakistani nor international election observers spotted the industrial-scale fraud Khan claims. Khan says his evidence implicating senior figures can be revealed — but only after he has ousted the government. On Aug. 12 Sharif offered to set up a three-member judicial commission to probe the vote-rigging claims, something Khan had been demanding. Yet Khan rejected the offer unless Sharif resigned too.

In the past, “long marches” like Khan’s — in reality, slow-moving convoys — have played a role in destabilizing and eventually killing off governments. Making this march all the more unpredictable is the involvement of a Sufi cleric and politician, Tahir ul Qadri, who runs a Muslim charitable organization based in Canada and commands an immense following. Unlike Khan, he appears uninterested in fresh elections.

Instead, he wants a “green revolution” leading to the establishment of a government run by spotless but as yet unidentified technocrats. Qadri’s followers have in recent months shown their capacity for confrontation, sometimes violent, with police. They also have staying power: In early 2013 Qadri led another long march to Islamabad, where thousands of his supporters camped out on the capital’s main avenue in winter.

Sharif’s government has responded by banning demonstrations, blocking entrances to Islamabad with shipping containers, and calling upon the army to protect the city. Some say all this has made the situation worse. They think he should have let the demonstrators wilt in the monsoon heat. The stock market wobbled, and currency dealers reported a rush to dump Pakistani rupees for dollars.

Once in the capital, protesters may be numerous enough to push aside the obstacles placed in their way. A magnificently appointed (and bulletproof) mobile bunker stands ready for Khan in case of a potentially lengthy stay on the streets. Should things turn violent, the army would probably have to step in. But an outright coup, though possible, seems unlikely. The generals made a mess of governing last time round. And they will be reluctant to take charge when their hands are full running a major campaign against Pakistani Taliban sanctuaries in the tribal badlands of North Waziristan. Besides, a coup would probably lead to the withdrawal of billions of dollars in much-needed military aid.

Even so, in its capacity as ringmaster, the army will have the opportunity to weaken further a troublesome prime minister. Sharif — deposed in 1999, the last time he was prime minister, by the army, under Pervez Musharraf — made overtures to the armed forces early in his current term. But he has become deeply disillusioned with the army establishment and its spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI).

The growing hostility between the two sides springs from fundamental disagreements. Where the army has attempted to control Afghanistan through proxies, including the Afghan Taliban, Sharif is adamant there should be no more meddling in Afghan affairs. He is desperate for better relations with India, a country Pakistan’s army largely exists to confront. And he has wondered aloud about the fortunes spent for the sake of Pakistan’s nuclear-arms race with India.

The prime minister and the army have already fought bruising battles over the fate of the country’s biggest private television station, Geo. It had the temerity to campaign for rapprochement with India and it dared to accuse the ISI of attempting to kill one of its top journalists. A bigger bone of contention is Musharraf, whom Sharif’s government has put on trial for treason. The army wants him released so that he can go back to self-imposed exile in London.

Before last year’s election, Sharif boasted that he had resisted the temptation to topple a weak government through nondemocratic means.

“The time for conspiracies is now gone,” he told one Pakistani journalist. If in the coming days Sharif buckles to army demands, for instance, over Musharraf or over India, then many observers will conclude that conspiracies are still central to Pakistan’s wayward politics.